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"Philosopher's stoned"

An alchemical puzzle from Stefan Lewis-Fish

Chairman Fish's

Big

Red

Book

Loudly splitting his own infinity,

Mouthing deep and complex thoughts,

Oozing feeling, painting concepts,

Bard repels the empty crowd.

Talking of a new reality,

Slicing veils of dreamtime mists,

Prophetic lenses wait for grinding,

Hollow words slash Razor's breath.

Bluster on dramatic Whisper,

Closet Thinker fearing light,

Back again to silent safety,

Stoned Philosopher listens in.

If the poem serves no function,

Or's badly written, poorly read,

Poet ploughs a barren field,

Digging plain old Verbiage.

But, suppose a seed hits fertile ground,

Bursting forth with creative power,

Rhyme and Reason mould the wording,

Reading stimulates the hour.

Now Philosopher's roused by Poet,

Transformed by his new ideas,

Crystallised by fresh perspectives,

Excitement puts Brain back in gear.

But, once tranquillised by Pills and Booze,

Thinker's Muse might just be dead,

And with Dialogue and Brain on off day,

Doctor needs to fix his head.

Leaden words imploding, ponder,

Calling Surgeon to be bold,

For he now needs radical procedures

To transmute basic verse to gold!

Mystery surrounds the arcane treatment,

Can a poet's alchemy really morph the soul?

The jury's still out in the writer's closet

But their insights may yet astound us all.